Just so you all can get an idea of what traveling on the race is like, here's a recap of our trip from Ireland to Ukraine:
Monday, 10:30 PM – arrive at the Dublin airport to spend the night
Tuesday, 2:30 AM – go to sleep in the floor of the Dublin airport
Tuesday, 4:30 AM – get woken up by airport security and told to move
Tuesday, 4:00 PM – fly to Istanbul, Turkey
Tuesday, 10:00 PM (ish) – arrive in Istanbul to sleep on a bench for the night
Wednesday, 6:00 AM – have Turkish ice cream (chocolate, vanilla, and pistachio) for breakfast
Wednesday, 8:00 AM – fly to Kiev, Ukraine
Wednesday, 12:00 PM (or was it 10:00 AM?) – meet our contact, Clinton, and take a bus from the airport into the city of Kiev to walk around and see the sights
Wednesday, 8:00 PM – board 16-hour overnight train to Uzhgorod
Thursday, 12:00 PM – get off the train and take a taxi to our contact's house
Annnd we made it! I gotta say, it was actually a really fun adventure! I loved every minute of it (although there were some stressful moments of lost people and lost passports along the way – all of which were successfully recovered). Let's see if I'm still saying that after month 10. 🙂
